Thomas Suddes commentary: Republicans like to carefully pick those who mark the ballots

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Sunday January 12, 2014 5:06 AM

Give Ohio Republicans this: They plan. That’s how they win elections.

In 1949, Republicans feared so-called straight-ticket voting might unseat U.S. Sen Robert A.
"Mr. Republican” Taft. In straight-ticket voting, an Ohioan, by marking just one “x,” could vote
for all the Republicans or all the Democrats listed on November’s ballot.

In 1950, Gov. Frank J. Lausche, a Cleveland Democrat, would run for re-election. Lots of
Republicans liked him. The GOP machine feared Lausche’s Republican fans might mark an “x” in the
straight-ticket box atop that list headed by Lausche’s name. Not only would that help him; it might
replace Taft with Democrat Joseph T. “Jumpin’ Joe” Ferguson.

Joe Ferguson might not have needed much help losing. Among his other gems, Ferguson, asked amid
the Korean War what foreign policy he favored, supposedly answered, “Beat Michigan!” Still,
Republicans left nothing to chance. They seldom do.

Then in 1977, Republicans found themselves, for once, agreeing with something often said by
Portsmouth Democrat Vernal G. Riffe, 20-year speaker of Ohio’s House. Riffe said, correctly, that
"if Ohio Democrats turn out, we win.”

This campaign season, Republican scheming seems directed more at other Republicans (albeit,
Republican rebels) than against Ohio Democrats.

Last fall, General Assembly Republicans passed Amended Substitute Senate Bill 193, which makes
it tougher for minor parties to get on Ohio’s ballot. (The four minor parties Ohio recognizes are
the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Socialist parties.)

On constitutional grounds, a federal district judge in Columbus has just killed SB 193, at least
for this year’s elections.

The bill was obviously aimed at holding down third-party voting this November by Republican
conservatives who are supposedly disenchanted with Gov. John Kasich. Kasich won the governorship by
just 77,000 votes in 2010. At this writing, he appears to be in good political shape. But on the
Republican right, to know Kasich is not necessarily to love him. Some conservatives were stupefied
because Kasich, to his credit, expanded Medicaid to help Ohio’s working poor.

Officially, of course, that wasn’t why Republicans passed Senate Bill 193. Supposedly, they
passed it because, due to lawsuits, Ohio for roughly eight years hasn’t had a specific third-party
ballot law. But that wasn’t a problem for anybody at the Statehouse until some Republican True
Believers shrieked about Kasich.

If closing such “gaps” in Ohio law were a GOP priority, Republicans would long ago have closed
drive-a-truck-through loopholes in Ohio’s payday-loan law. Five years ago — and with a “yes” vote
of 64 percent — voters said they wanted a tough payday-loan law. GOP lawmakers instead lolled in
their hammocks.

A quick look suggests the last time a third-party candidate won a statewide race in Ohio was in
1912, when a Bull Moose Progressive, Akron’s Reuben Wanamaker, won an Ohio Supreme Court seat. It
also appears the last time voters elected a third-party Ohio House candidate, also a Bull Moose
Progressive, was just before World War I (ironically, in GOP House Speaker William G. Batchelder’s
Medina County). That is, it’s the governor’s race, not down-ticket contests, that concerns the
GOP.

So, as in 1949 and 1977, now in 2013 and 2014, that’s the Republican way in Ohio. Talk taxes.
Talk guns. But if the voters don’t cotton to your candidates, don’t pick other candidates. Try to
pick safer voters.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer
in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.